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They’d expected to never see him again. They’d settled, eventually; Rory’s advanced medical knowledge was more than enough to secure him a job as a full-fledged Doctor in spite of the receding depression, and Amy stayed mostly at home and wrote, or went to readings and seminars by famous people who she’d somehow never gotten around to making to the Raggedy Doctor take her to see. It wasn’t unusual for Rory to come home to find Amy rearranging the bookshelves in order to display the newest autographed copy of “The Hobbit” or “Of Mice and Men.” Their phones were still time-travel capable and had weirdly long battery life, and on particularly lonely nights the two of them huddled on the couch and caught up on news from their own time, or researched big events coming their way. It wasn’t aliens or new planets, and they keenly felt the loss of their friend, but it was the life they had wanted before, and for the most part it was good. “I never wanted him to be gone forever,” Amy sniffed one night after a third glass of Sherry. Rory rubbed soothing circles on her neck and rested his chin on her hair, at a complete loss for what to say. He spoke anyway. “Let’s go to Leadworth,” he said. Amy raised watery eyes up to meet his.
“What?”
“Let’s go,” he urged. He lifted a finger and wiped a single shining tear from her cheek. “Next week,” he continued. “I’ve got loads of time off built up, and we can afford it. In fact, we can hit a few familiar spots. Make some new memories, and laugh about the old ones. It’ll be…”
“Fun,” Amy finished.
“Closure,” said Rory simultaneously. They blinked at each other.
“You miss him too,” Amy said after a long moment.
“Of course I do. He was our friend. Mad and gangly and a bit…kissy, but I loved him.” He said it again. “I loved him.”
Amy smiled wistfully and leaned against Rory. “Remember when we were three?” He wrapped his arms around her and intertwined their fingers.
“Absolutely.” Neither of them mentioned it, but both of them remembered the mattress shopping, which had devolved into something close to an emotional breakdown for the two of them. Those first days had been hard, when everything they saw around them reminded them they did not belong, brought back up all of the things they ‘d lost. They’d purchased a full-size mattress; there was no longer a need for that extra person-sized space. It had taken weeks to get used to the idea that their King-sized bed at home would be forever devoid of the three of them. It was small things like that. “I’ll put in the time request tomorrow,” Rory said, and he was rewarded with a snuggle and a long exhale of relief.
“Can you believe our future selves are going to be here one day? In this very spot?” Amy bit into a sandwich and chewed with relish, marveling at the trees and the animals up all around them. “If your GPS is as accurate as you say—“
“It’s fifty-second century,” Rory protested. Amy brushed a watermelon seed from his bottom lip and giggled.
“I was just thinking—we’re sitting in our living room. Right now.”
“You can’t possibly know that,” Rory scoffed, but he looked sideways, as though imaginig where everything might go.
“No really!” Amy laughed. “The sun always came up through the kitchen window—“she pointed to the East and Rory grumbled something like “Tinted window, my arse”—“and we started on the coordinate that was the cornerstone of the house, so…here. I think you might be sitting in the middle of the coffee table.”
“I never liked it anyway.”
Amy gasped in mock horror. “You’re the one who pointed it out!”
“For a cabin!” Rory protested. “Which we absolutely did not have.”
“And whose fault was that?” Amy teased. Rory growled and attacked her with sticky kisses, trapping her arms at her sides as she giggled helplessly. A sudden noise made them both stiffen in shock, eyes widening and hearts seeming to stop in unison.
“No way,” Rory breathed. Amy clenched the lapel of his shirt in a white-knuckled fist as slowly, impossibly, the TARDIS materialized before them, as ancient and proud and blue as it had ever been. Amy covered her mouth with a hand, and she and Rory got shakily to their feet. It was Amy who finally raised a hand to knock, but the doors swung open before her hand could connect to the wood. Steam and smoke hissed from the interior, wreathing the figure stepping towards them. The person who stepped out of the whirling currents of air fanned her face and smiled broadly at them.
“’Ello!” she said. “You must be Amy and Rory. M’name’s Jenny. My mistress said I’d find you here one of these days.” Amy and Rory gawped at her in silence. Jenny turned and looked behind her in confusion. “Wot’s the matter with you two, then?”
“You’re not the Doctor,” Amy managed. She was running her hands unconsciously over the wooden exterior of the sentient ship, which seemed almost to purr under her fingers.
The girl frowned. “Course I’m not,” she said. “But ‘e needs you, s’why the madam sent me.” Her face fell. “He isn’t well.”
Both Amy and Rory looked away from the TARDIS and straight at her. “He needs us?” Rory echoed.
“What happened to him? And why is it so dark in the TARDIS?” Amy demanded. The ship gave a groan, and Jenny patted the doorframe with a nervous hand.
“Please ma’am, I can’t really fly her s’well as I’d like, and this is going to be a tricky jump. I need you to come quickly.” Rory and Amy looked at each other.
“He needs us,” Amy said to Rory’s unspoken question.
“We might not be able to come back here,” Rory said.
“What else is new?” They stared at each other for another long moment, and then broke into giggles of sheer delight. “We’re going to see him again,” she said. Rory tugged her hand, and together they stepped into the blue box. They didn’t look back.
Amy shivered in the console room of the TARDIS. Gone were the bright yellow lights and playground-esque architecture, the funny levers and the condiment buttons. Everything was dim, and it seemed to Amy as though it was in flux—she couldn’t quite fix her eyes on the shape or location of anything in the room, though she knew there were steps and doors and rooms.
“’E’s changing it,” Jenny said from the console, where she was inserting a disk into the side of a panel. “Took me ‘alf an hour to find anything when I left to come t’ you. Kept…” she gestured in annoyance, “slippin’ away. She seems better now you’re here though.” Her brow furrowed. “’opefully you can do the same for the Doctor.”
“What exactly is wrong with him?” Rory reached to touch a familiar lever, but it wavered and vanished, only to be replaced by a black and lethal-looking spike.
“Grief, I reckon,” she said quietly. “Just turned up one day on our street wiv ‘is wife, lookin’ like death. His ship locked him out. ‘Spect she won’t let ‘im back in until he’s healed enough to figure out who he’s going to be now.”
“Grief…for us?” said Amy. She didn’t have to look at Rory to know they were thinking the same thing. He’d had so many come and go—surely theirs was just another in a long line of losses. Surely by now, he’d…
“He’s too human for his own good,” Rory said, and Amy squeezed his hand. The TARDIS landed with a thump and a hiss, and then made a noise neither of them had heard before. Jenny stroked the flickering console before turning to them.
“M’not sure about the particulars, but I think she’s parked inside a past version of herself. Madame called it a ‘pocket universe,’ I think.”
“Right. Okay,” said Rory, not unkindly but with finality. “Can we see him now?” Amy felt her heart warm at the realization that her husband had been serious about his love of being three.
“’Course you can. I jus’ need you to know that there’s a bit of a time limit.”
“We’re fine,” Amy said. “We didn’t think we’d ever see him again. A few minutes is more than we ever hoped for.”
Jenny nodded and smiled. “Good news for you, then,” she said. “You get a few hours.” She laughed as the two of them raced past her.
They were in their room aboard the TARDIS, left exactly the way it had been when they left. Including, Amy noticed, the underwear Rory had left at the foot of the bed. She would have laughed at him outright under different circumstances, but the sight of the skinny figure huddled beneath the duvet at the center of their bed was enough to capture her full attention. A Silurian was seated next to the bed, and she rose to meet them. Amy and Rory eyed her a bit warily. She looked pleased to see them, and her smile widened when Jenny appeared at the door.
“Hello, my love,” she said as they embraced. “Thank goodness you’re here,” she said to Amy and Rory. When no reply came, her great head swiveled from Jenny back to them. “Are you sure these are the right humans?” she asked.
“We are,” Amy spoke up quickly. It’s just…”
“Last time we saw your species, I kind of got erased from history.” Rory finished. Then he added, mumbling, “After I got shot.”
“I’m not sure I understand,” the Silurian said, her expression unreadable.
Jenny tugged her sleeve. “I think they were worried this might have been a trap.”
“Ah,” she said, and her scales flashed in the light. “I assure you that you may entertain no such fears here. I am Madame Vastra, Jenny’s wife and a friend of the Doctor’s, and as his friend I did everything I could to secure your passage here for these few hours.”
“Thank you,” Amy said. Her shoulders relaxed in the thick woolen jumper on them. Madame Vastra inclined her head and the two of them withdrew into the hallway of the past TARDIS. When Amy turned, Rory was already at the Doctor’s side, checking vitals and muttering to himself.
“He’s definitely not eating,” he said to Amy in a whisper when she drew close to him. “And his heartbeats are slow.” Amy felt a pang as she leaned over and dropped a tender kiss on the Doctor’s temple.
“Oi,” she said gently, “wake up, Raggedy Man.” She placed a hand on the side of his face, thumb brushing back and forth over his cheekbone. He stirred, and a whimper escaped him before he drew his limbs in closer to his body and was still again. Amy looked helplessly at Rory. It was so strange to see their friend as anything short of hyperactive, and to see him obviously hurting…
Rory nudged the Doctor’s shoulder, letting his hand linger there. This time they were rewarded with a fluttering of his lashes, which gave way to two ageless green eyes focusing and processing what was before them. His mouth worked as he twisted his head slowly from face to face, and Amy giggled when she saw the tiny puddle of drool where his jaw had been resting.
“Rory…Amy…it’s you?” A shaky hand emerged from beneath the duvet and rested on Amy’s cheek.
She smiled and rested her hand over his. “Hello again.”
Eyes wide, the Doctor’s hand moved to Rory’s shoulder, staring. For long moment, nobody moved. And then the Doctor exploded into motion, leaping from the bed to wrap an arm around each of the Ponds, knocking everyone off balance and toppling them all back onto the oversized bed in a heap of limbs and laughter and tears. He was touching them frantically, hands reaching for arms and knees and hair, and they were stroking his hair, murmuring assurances, kissing his tears away. Finally, they lay in a pile of tangled limbs and bodies, breathing hard and burrowing as close as they could to each other.
“So,” Rory deadpanned after a long, contented moment. “What’s up?”
The Doctor’s giggle was borderline hysterical, and he flexed his bare feet and kissed both of his friends’ foreheads. “Everything, now that we’re together again. Ponds, we can do anything we want!” He looked thoughtful. “Starting with staying right here until I have had enough of touching you. Which might be never, but that’s alright because we have all the time in universe!” His head flopped back onto the pillow. “Rassilon, I missed you,” he said. And then: “River is not going to be happy.”
Amy frowned. “Because she’s not here to see us?”
“Well she wouldn’t be,” the Doctor said. “She isn’t that reckless.” He was silent for a moment. “I broke her heart though, I can guarantee you that. I will have to apologize for that.” Amy and Rory shared a worried glance over the Doctor’s head.
“Doctor,” Rory began. “You do know we can only stay for a few hours, right?”
“What do you mean?” His face grew a bit suspicious. “We have all the time there ever was or will be now.”
Amy took over. “We’re in a bubble universe, Jenny said. They created it just so we could come to you without blowing your timeline apart.”
The Doctor looked more perplexed than either of the Ponds could remember seeing him. “Why does my timeline matter?” he asked. “We’re beyond time now.” He looked for all the world like the largest puppy in the universe, all eyes and frown.
Something about the phrasing caught Rory’s attention. “Doctor,” he said slowly. “We aren’t dead. You know that, right?”
Amy’s brow furrowed. “Of course we’re not dead. We just went back in time…hang on.” The Doctor was suddenly avoiding their eyes, though he made no move to pull away. “Breaking River’s heart, having all the time there is…Doctor, look at me.” He did, his face a mixture of great reluctance lingering awe that she was really here with him. “You tried to kill yourself,” she stated. The Doctor went very, very still.
“And you thought you’d succeeded,” Rory finished. A terrible, terrible sadness crashed down over the Doctor’s eyes. He seemed to shrink in the oversized shirt draped around his frame. Rory shook his shoulder. “Come back,” he said.
“Already did,” the Doctor said, and there was broken glass in his voice. Amy nestled her head on his chest, listening to the double heartbeats beneath her ear and trying not to cry. She and Rory formed a kind of cover over him, such that someone looking in from above might have only seen two bodies and three heads tangled in the duvet. Maybe, she thought fleetingly, they could squeeze the sad out of him. All at once he began to cry. Where his tears had been of happiness a few short minutes before, these had the weight of centuries in them; every drop another name, another race lost to time and his decisions. Amy and Rory cried with him, unable to do anything else and aching to see their friend go through a kind of pain they couldn’t understand. Amy wiped the pad of her thumb over his cheek and kissed the damp spot left over, and then she was kissing him instead and neither of them was sure who had started it.
Amy supposed, dimly, that his positive reaction stemmed from need—not for romance, but for intimacy. There had never been a need for anything sexual between them; they had seen more of each other than a simple removal of clothes could ever show, had touched places in one another that had nothing to do with the physical. This kiss was simply a tangible reminder of that bond—something for him to cling to in this deep sorrow that he had tried to lose himself in. A life preserver. And finally, after a long moment, he responded. A hand tangled in her hair and his tongue slid against hers—an acknowledgment, a thanks, an assurance. She felt Rory’s hand rubbing circles on her back, sending his support and his will to the Doctor in his own way. It was Amy who had to finally come up for air, and when she looked down into the Doctor’s eyes, they were clear and focused, the way she remembered them in her thoughts. He returned her smile with a trace of his usual vigor.
“Hello, old friend,” she said.
“And here we are,” he replied in a whisper. The three of them sat up, and the Doctor took a deep breath. He turned to Rory. “Sorry, mate,” he said. “I said that would quit happening.”
Rory shrugged. “I think it was necessary. If I thought it would have meant the same coming from me…” The Doctor threw his arms around Rory’s neck, and Rory was startled at how far his ribs protruded under the loose shirt. “Doctor,” he said once they had parted, “what can Amy and I do for you? How do we help you heal? Jenny said when you leave this bubble, you’ll have forgotten we were here.”
“We don’t want you to try this again,” Amy said, covering his hand with her own.
“I don’t think I will,” he replied. “I’ll wake up in my room on the TARDIS after a wonderful dream, believing that you’re exactly where you’re meant to be.” The side of his face came up in a crooked smile. “Even if I’ll still be missing you with all my hearts.”
Amy punched his arm, lightly. “You’d better,” she said, and the three of them shared a smile. “Rory,” Amy said. “There should be a stash of Jammie Dodgers in the drawer on your side of the bed. Grab them, will you?” Rory looked aghast.
“That’s where you’d been hiding them?”
“In with the clothes you’d never wear again? Obviously.” Rory made a face and rummaged through the drawer, turning up a moment later with a triumphant grunt. Amy took them from him and pointed to the closet. “Grab your stash of Hula Hoops too.”
“You knew about those?”
“A nose that big, and you can’t tell when the room smells like onions and cheese?”
“Oi!”
Amy looked over at the Doctor, who was smiling sadly at the biscuit she’d placed in his hand. He caught her looking and shoved the entire thing in his mouth with a crumb-laden grin. Amy laughed and took a bite, making a noise of sheer bliss. “Oh, I missed these,” she said. “It’ll be another twenty five years before these are around in our time.”
“I’m sorry,” the Doctor said sadly through his biscuit.
Amy blinked. “Shut up,” she said. “It wasn’t your fault. And nobody should be sad with a mouthful of Jammie Dodger. It isn’t allowed.”
“Besides,” Rory said as he climbed back up on the huge bed, “we’re happy in America.”
The Doctor peered at him as Rory shoved a handful of hula hoops into his mouth. “Are you really?” he asked.
“Yeah, sure,” said Amy. “You should see the book collection I’ve got going—a bunch of authors aren’t dead yet and these books are going to be priceless one day. Yeah, things aren’t as progressive as I would like, but we’re going to get to experience the eighties firsthand, and—” she lifted a finger— “we’ll be old enough to enjoy them.”
“I personally am looking forward to Michael Jackson’s debut,” said Rory.
They all laughed and the Doctor visibly relaxed, convinced his friends were not lying to him.
“Your dad got your message, you know,” he said. The Ponds looked at him in surprise.
“I haven’t finished drafting it,” Amy said, recovering before Rory, “so don’t tell me what it said.”
Rory shook his head to clear it. “How did he react?”
“He was heartbroken,” the Doctor said, and for a moment his face darkened again, “but he insisted that he didn’t blame me. He was glad to know that you were safe, even if you weren’t in his current life anymore. Too kind, really…” he took a deep breath. Amy patted his shoulder reassuringly, then scooted back on the bed so that her back was against the wall. She tugged him into position beside her, and Rory moved all the snacks with them.
“So,” Amy said. “We’ve still got some time. Want to hear about our boring lives?”
“Amelia Pond,” The Doctor said, resting his head on her shoulder and squeezing Rory’s free hand, “nothing about your life will ever be boring to me.”
“Oi,” said Rory. “That’s my line.”